Taking Welcoming Beyond Lip Service

Have you noticed how when you resist your discomfort it usually persists?

The antidote is to really welcome your discomfort, and take its power away.

Many healing modalities include an early step of ‘welcoming your discomfort’ – be it  a feeling or physical sensation that’s bothering you. I first came across the idea of welcoming when I was learning to use The Sedona Method, which uses the question ‘Could you welcome the feeling?’.

With practice I’ve found that welcoming an unpleasant feeling or pain always diminishes it, and often allows it to dissolve completely, without any further work.

But it wasn’t always that way, and listening to Rudy Hunter recently highlighted to me the difference between paying lip service to healing methods and actually doing them!

Think of welcoming your condition in a similar way to welcoming a friend into your home;  really wanting them to be there, opening the door and ushering them in. This is a world of difference way from simply paying lip service to welcoming. I wish someone had put it to me that way years ago!

As you welcome something uncomfortable, you take the power out of its persistence. It reminds me of the Tai Chi practice I’m learning called ‘push hands’, where you work with a partner to move them off balance. A key technique is to yield to their push, which then loses its power. Yielding is akin to welcoming, also termed allowing in some modalities.

Of course it can be scary to welcome your discomfort. after all, the very reason you’re resisting it is because it’s uncomfortable and you want it to go away.

Sure, it may be fleetingly uncomfortable, but that will quickly pass, as you take the power out of your discomfort.

If it feels too scary to welcome, here are two tips:

• work on a minor discomfort to start with, to build your confidence with welcoming
• welcome your fear of welcoming and allow the fear to diminish before welcoming the discomfort itself.

You can use welcoming on its own to diminish your discomfort. Then if there’s still some discomfort left, follow it up with your favourite healing method.

You’re welcome!